IRIS
Sol gave me three days.
Each night, before we climb the stairs to go to the attic, Sol locks eyes with me and smiles. He waits until the others are turned away before holding up a hand and ticking down one more finger.
Three.
Two.
One.
It’s the third night now. My last chance.
I keep thinking of Marigold, quietly rotting in a shallow grave.
Now that I know what happened to her, where she ended up, the girl I never knew consumes my mind.
Will Rose be buried next to her if I go through with this?
Will we both be buried there if I don’t?
Will it be Violet who takes us out? Would Lily let her?
What would happen to Poppy or Zinnia? How would they take it?
I’ve spent the last couple of nights unable to sleep during the scant few hours of rest we’re allowed, lying awake, all too aware of the knife hidden beneath my mattress. I’m exhausted and terrified.
And guilty.
Guilty for both paths I could walk tonight. Guilty because no matter what I decide, I will be hurting someone I care about.
Because no matter what he’s done, I do love Sol. I can’t forget that he still saved me. Gave me a home. And I love my sisters, too. Betraying Sol will betray them.
When I’m sure everyone else is asleep, I slip out of my blankets and kneel on the wooden planks of the attic floor. I reach my hand beneath the mattress, carefully digging until I find the hilt of Sol’s knife.
My knuckles drag across a folded sheet of paper and a small rectangular card hidden with the knife, and I pull those out, too.
The blade gleams in the moonlight that comes through the window.
The entire room is cast in an eerie silver glow.
Haunting and unsettling. Except for Rose.
The way the moonlight hits her face and how soundly she sleeps—she reminds me again of a fairy tale princess.
Only now she’s Snow White in the glass coffin.
Waiting for her true love to come and kiss her awake and save her from this eternal nightmare.
I bite my lip as a trickle of warm tears streams down my face, and I look down at the paper. My own face stares back up at me, though it’s like looking into the past. Me before the trials. Before the haircut. Before the fire. Before this knife.
How has so much changed in just a few months?
Maybe it isn’t real.
Maybe I’m dreaming.
I press my finger to the sharp edge of the blade. It stings, and I bleed, and I know that this is my reality.
A horrific, grotesque, and deeply cruel reality.
Quietly, I push onto my feet and walk around the attic, past the sleeping forms of Poppy and Zinnia on the bed, until I come to Rose’s mattress. I stare down at her, the knife still clutched in my trembling right hand.
I try to imagine it for a moment: the simple motion of slicing into her neck while she sleeps, the ooze of scarlet, the same color as the lipstick she always wears, spreading across her pale skin and onto the old, thin pillows. It would be so easy. Just one slice.
That thought makes me want to throw up.
I don’t know how long I stand there looking down at her. It could be a minute. It could be hours. But finally, I extend my hand toward her sleeping body as I kneel down closer to her.
My left hand.
My empty hand.
I clasp her shoulder and give her a gentle shake.
“Rose.” My voice comes out in a harsh whisper, cracking with tears. “Rose, you need to wake up.”
She doesn’t stir at first. So I have to shake her a little bit harder.
“Rose.”
“Hm?” She blinks, green eyes sleepy and unfocused as they settle on me. “Iris? You’re crying. What’s wrong?”
“We have to go,” I say. “We have to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“You were right. We’re not safe here. Get dressed. We need to go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain,” I say. My heart is racing now, panic rising as the weight of the choice I’ve just made crashes into me. “Please, just get up. Grab whatever things you need to take with us. We have to hurry.”
I don’t know how long we have until dawn. Time, over the last three days, has moved in strange bursts, sometimes creeping along at a snail’s pace and other times zooming so fast that in the blink of an eye, I realize three hours are gone.
She sits up, rubbing her eyes. Only then does she seem to register that I’m holding a knife. She stares at it. “Where did you get that?”
“Later,” I say. My voice is growing more desperate now. “Please, Rose, let’s just go.”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” She pushes the quilt off and begins to gather whatever she can.
She doesn’t ask me where we’re going, and that’s a relief, because I would have to admit that I have no idea. It’s been so hard to think past my choices. To imagine life on the other side of either decision. So I haven’t really considered what we’ll actually do when we leave.
But the fact that she trusts me enough not to ask—to just go when I ask her to—that just adds to the growing storm of guilt in my chest, echoing through me like a thunderclap in the Cumberland Mountains, and sends a fresh stream of tears down my face.
I’d been so close to making such a horrible choice.
And yet, part of me still can’t help but wonder if this choice, to turn my back on Sol and my sisters, is just as horrible in its own way.
Rose pulls on a pair of jeans and finds the red hoodie she arrived here in.
And, of course, she grabs that same tube of red lipstick she’s kept with her for the last few months.
Not a day has passed where she hasn’t put it on.
Even here, with a new name and Sol telling her to let everything from her past life go, she’s held on to that piece of herself.
It’s more than I’ve managed to hold on to.
I get dressed in a hurry. I’m not even sure who the clothes I grab originally belonged to.
We’ve all made an art of haphazardly putting together outfits composed of the clothes we’d brought with us to the cabin and the cheapest pieces we could find—or steal, I suspect—from Goodwill.
My own clothes, the ones I brought with me, are too big now.
A year’s worth of small meals and little sleep have altered my body.
So I find a pair of sweatpants that are a little too long and a raggedy, ripped sweater.
I leave everything else behind, not wanting to take anything from the other girls.
I look at the girl in the drawing one last time before folding the paper up and shoving it—along with the business card—into my pocket.
I’ve given away or sold so much since arriving here: my car, my camera, my hair.
Even my clothes have become community property.
But this drawing—this singular, secret gift Zinnia gave me—is mine.
The thought nudges me to turn back around and dig through the clothes pile again, until I find the familiar soft leather jacket. I shrug it on, letting its weight settle on my shoulders. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I last wore it.
Once both Rose and I have put on whatever shoes we can find, we move like ghosts to the attic door, leaving Poppy and Zinnia none the wiser as they sleep peacefully on the bed.
I stop in the doorway and look back at them.
They are two of my best friends. And even though the thought of them potentially going into foster care or being separated breaks my heart, it doesn’t compare to the terror I feel when I think about the trials Sol might assign to them come summer.
And that thought is what cements a plan in my mind at last.
“We’ll come back for them,” I whisper to Rose. “We’ll get to town, get help, and come back for them.”
Rose nods in silent agreement.
We creep down the stairs, trying to be careful not to cause any of the old wooden boards to creak. Finally, we reach the living room, and I’m relieved to find that it’s completely empty.
“Any clue where Sol keeps the truck keys?” Rose whispers.
I shake my head. “Probably in his room? We’ll have to walk.” I keep my voice low. “There’s a flashlight in the shed. If we follow the dirt road, we can get to town in an hour. Then I guess we’ll have to find the police station?”
“I know where it’s at.”
I raise an eyebrow at her.
She shrugs. “I made a point of finding out when I ran into town that day. Thought it might end up mattering.” She glances toward the door and then back at me. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
I know she must have questions. Ones I’ll have to answer later. But I’m grateful that she’s holding them back for now. There will be plenty of time to explain everything once we’re on the road, making that long walk to town.
Sol’s knife is still in my right hand as I reach for the door, turning the knob and pulling it open slowly, hoping not to make any noise.
But I know as soon as I step out onto the front porch that it doesn’t matter, that all of our efforts to be quiet and careful are in vain.
Because he is waiting for us.
Of course he is.
Sol stands on the porch, his face lit by the unsettling orange glow of the flame from the cigarette he’s smoking. He smiles with it between his teeth as he looks at me.
“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”